[Vision2020] "Life of Reilly" by Rick Reilly (April 3, 2009)

[Tom Hansen]

"Life of reilly"
By Rick Reilly
 
Hasheem Thabeet is a long, tall, shot-blocking machine with an NBA future. 
But that's not why he can't stop smiling.

The beauty in The Beast is the problem. He kids. He dances. He hugs. And 
this is in the first half. He laughs. He tells jokes. He does his Dick 
Vitale impression. During warmups. He is the least of beasts, actually. 

But UConn's 7'3'' junior center Hasheem (The Beast) Thabeet can't help it. 
He is terminally cheerful. He knows what NBA scouts have said about him: 
Not nearly mean and nasty enough … most (NBA) guys will go right through 
him. Which is undeniably true. You can see for yourself this Final Four, 
as 'Sheem the Beam and the Huskies roll into Detroit. He gets the rebound 
and tiny people slap his wrists until he lets it go. Runts push him off 
the blocks like cops with nightsticks. His dunk would hardly dent a 
marshmallow.

"I do not know how to control this," grins Thabeet (thaa-BEET). "Maybe 
I'll be mean enough someday."

Unlikely. 

Example: You ask The Beast if you can speak to his mom. He gives you his 
own cell number and says, "I will translate!" So, later, you call it, sure 
you've got a fake, and his voicemail answers. So you leave a message like 
you've left a thousand others with athletes, knowing you will not get a 
call back. Except in less than an hour he's calling you back. "I wanted to 
be sure to return your call right away!" he says. 

Dude. I'm going to need to see some ID. 

On most any day at UConn, Ucan see The Beast in the Student Union quad, 
eating lunch, surrounded by 12 to 15 students, all of them giggling. He 
absorbs everything, a kind of SpongeBob Tall Pants. In Tanzania, he was a 
model, a TV crewmember, and a security guard at concerts. And that was 
before his 15th birthday. "They thought I was much older," he 
laughs. "People would let me do anything!"

Really? You? A bouncer? "Oh, no, I was terrible. The fights would start 
and I would run away!"

You begin to see the problem.

One day, his father lent him his best atlas to take to fifth grade show 
and tell. He promptly lost it. Hasheem feared his father's whipping stick 
so much that he was too scared to come home. His mother found him that 
night on the streets, crying. 

"He's a very sensitive kid," says UConn trainer James Doran. "When he 
first got here, any little thing would send him into a panic. He's much 
better now." 

Although, in UConn's Elite Eight win over Missouri last weekend, Thabeet 
hurt his ring finger going after a loose ball. The way he flailed around, 
you'd have thought he lost an eyeball. 

"Well, if you let him," says Doran. "He'll roll clear to the other bucket."

So you can imagine how Thabeet took it after his Oxford-educated architect 
father died of diabetes complications when 'Sheem was just 14. The boy was 
so distraught he quit school. He began taking odd jobs, believing he 
needed to provide for his mother and two siblings. 

"I was so worried about him," says his dressmaker mother, Rukia. "I only 
wanted him to go back to school."

He finally did. A year later, a coach in 'Sheem's hometown of Dar es 
Salaam talked him into trying hoops. But the guys playing it were all so … 
so … mean! "I was scared. So I lied. I told him I didn't have any gears 
[sic]. But then he gave me gears [sic]. So I had no choice but to play."

Seven years later, the hoops world is about to discover his best gears -- 
sending shots back to their makers. Mean or not, he and his Boeing 
wingspan are second in the nation in blocks this season. At one point this 
year, he swatted away a three and the opposing coach looked up at him and 
said, "Thabeet, can't you just let one go?"

When UConn bested Missouri Saturday and the last-second rebound fell into 
Thabeet's arms, he celebrated like he'd just taken the Bastille. He 
skipped, pogo-ed, and screamed. He ran 30 rows up into the stands and held 
his mom. "Thank you for raising me," he gushed, and they both cried. He 
waved the Tanzanian flag. He grabbed the trophy and struck a Heisman pose.

If UConn wins it all, it would be the first hoops team greeted in the 
White House by Barack Obama, the first president with African roots. That 
makes The Beast's eyes a little misty. "I only wish my father could be 
here to share this with me," he says, still hugging the ball.

So many players in this Final Four, in this draft, in this game, live 
their lives for a nearly unreachable thing: starring in the NBA. Most of 
them won't star; most won't even get there. It can be crushing. But 
Thabeet is one kid I don't worry about. His light you can't put out. He is 
more resilient than a Slinky. And it's nice to know that whatever happens, 
Thabeet goes on.

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Hasheem Thabeet
http://tinyurl.com/HasheemThabeet
 
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Seeya round town, Moscow

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
Join us at The First Annual Intolerista Wingding, April 17th, featuring 
Roy Zimmerman and Jeanne McHale.  For details go to . . .

http://www.MoscowCares.com/Wingding

Seeya
there.

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